Struggling Owls make switch at point guard

Stefan Moody's move to shooting guard proving positive

November 20, 2012|By Dieter Kurtenbach, Sun Sentinel

The 2012-13 basketball season hasn't started the way FAU coach Mike Jarvis would have liked, so he's shaking things up after four games.

It wasn't hard to see that something needed to change after a season-opening, four-game road trip, the 1-3 Owls are struggling to find an identity and a level of cohesion. Of the 344 Division-1 teams, FAU ranks 324th in defensive rebound percentage (59.2), 329th in assists per game (8.2), 336th in opponent's rebounds per game (44.5), 338th in field-goal percentage (33.9 percent) and 340th in assist-to-turnover ratio (0.41).

Jarvis entered the road trip with questions. He returned with more — the biggest being his conundrum at point guard.

The Owls don't have a true point guard, but that wasn't a problem for Jarvis in the preseason. He moved freshman and Parade All-American Stefan Moody to the point to start the season, but the results were less than stellar.

So Jarvis moved flash-free freshman Jackson Trapp into the role on the second half of the trip, and the freshman has performed admirably. Enough so that Jarvis is going to keep Trapp at point and leave Moody in a shooter's role, an area where he has shown he can thrive.

"[Moody] is our most dangerous offensive player," Jarvis said.

"As much as I want him to be a point guard, and in the future I think he will be ... I need him right now to be my scorer."

Moody has performed, providing more than a quarter of the team's points this year, the majority of them coming since being moved away from the point.

As for Trapp: "He's someone who can get you into your stuff," Jarvis said. "He's not a guy who is looking to score. I need Stefan scoring, and as the point guard, he wasn't being that."

The Owls open their home schedule Saturday afternoon against one of the nation's better mid-major teams, American University.